15 Apr 2009 Day 4 at Splashy was definitely a day for blues on the main stage although there were some surprises. The bands I saw were Tim Parr, Ilan Lax, Bobby and the Dynamites, RedHouse, Dave Ferguson, Dan Patlansky and Heather Mac & the Brills and Sea Level on the Splashy Fen Stage.

Tim Parr of Baxtop and then EllaMental fame had a stunning set with some great guests, Kathy Raven who is one of SA’s great yet relatively unknown vocalists and songwriters, they play as a band on a regular basis in Joburg; Tara Fataar of Avataar on vocals, Paul (not sure of his surname) on bass from New York, and Dom Benigno,  keyboard player and drummer Byron Usher from Jack Mantis. A rocking set to warm up the stage for the rest of the day.


Bobby and the Dynamites were quite a surprise for me; I heard the music from some way off and could tell that these were a bunch of guys who could really play the Blues. Once I got closer and could see them, I could see why, I think the youngest member in the band can’t be any younger than fifty, they’ve all had years to learn and perfect the blues, no blues rock here, this is blues the way BB King plays it, each member of the band a master of his particular instrument, if you’re a blues fan in Durban, don’t miss out on these guys, I believe they have a regular Tuesday night blues session, I will add details as soon as I have found out.

And here’s where the surprise comes in, RedHouse, who are well known and have built a large fan base as a blues band took to the stage. After about the second or third number they dished out what were probably thirty RedHouse t-shirts to the audience, I was fortunate enough to be given one - cool t-shirt. After handing these out and saying that maybe one day they would be valuable, the vocalist started to make mention of how much change is needed in our country and the world and how important change is and then proceeded to tell the audience that in the same way, RedHouse has decided to make a change and will now be known as Avard (an Avard banner spontaneously dropped down behind the drummer) with a completely new sound, which is I guess melodic to hard rock.

A festival is a good place to make an announcement of that nature, however its not necessarily the best thing to be booked for a blues slot and then two numbers into the set become a rock band, this is not to say that the material was not good but hey guys, if you’ve been payed to play a blues set, best you play blues. Make your announcement at the end of the set and give people a taste of what’s to come but leave that till the end or you’re going to find someone getting really pissed at you. As far as the new name goes, I’m not sure what Avard means but it certainly isn’t a name that rolls off the tongue (which is what was said to me when I relayed the story to someone who wasn't there), I wish them the best of luck and best you let your audiences know before they come to a gig that they’re not going to be listening to RedHOUSE or blues for that matter.


Dave Ferguson, now this is an unusual one man blues act, he’s got his stuff together and has no problem entertaining a large crowd with his brand of blues, using loops, (as many artists these days are doing) he lays down a soundscape of looped sounds with his voice and other instruments and then vocals and plays the harp around them and damn, does he do it well. If you’re up for something, a little different and top class, give one of his solo shows a listen, he’s the man and he’ll blow your mind.


Blues prodigy Dan Patlansky needs no introduction in blues circles, he can make that Fender Strat come to life, the highlight of the night was when he took his close to ten minute solo of Hendrick’s Voodoo Child, and the crowd went nuts. I have a full video of this which will take some time to upload; once it’s up I’ll add it. Even though it was well over the allotted time, the audience wouldn’t let Dan go without an encore, the MC eventually conceded to a short one.

The last band for me was Heather Mac & the Brills and it was well worth waiting for. Heather Mac was married to Tim Parr back in the day and together formed EllaMental in the 80’s. The rest of the band is made up of husband Mark Harris on guitar and vocals; Ian Cohen on bass and vocals; Tonio Selley of 80’s bands Khaki Monitor and the Pressure Cookies which had at least on hit record, she is featured in the photographic journal VoelVry which goes into the white anti-apartheid music of the 80’s, must admit I haven’t had the chance to read it cover to cover, it is accompanied by a video which has some really great footage of 80’s bands like the Cherry Faced Lurchers and early days of Johannes Kerkorrel, well worth getting if you can find it, I think it’s available at  Exclusive Books, I am digressing a little here, Tonio is featured on percussion and also performed one number on leed vocals and acoustic guitar.  

A pic of some deaf people who attended the festival, on one occasion a very enthusiastic band representative was trying to sell them cd's and just couldn't quite get it that the cd's were not of much use to these folks, they were having an amazing time at Splashy anyway, I must say that one could have attended and enjoyed the festival for the visual pleasure on it's own. In the pic below are this group, although I don't think the girl on the left was one of the group. As a disabled person myself the festival was really hard going, getting around on the rough terrain but the organisers did everything possible to make the festival as accessible as they could, including disabled toilets which were in a secure area to avoid abuse, people as always were more than willing to assist at any time, well done and thank you Splashy.

In rounding up on Splashy Fen’s Big 20th Birthday Bash, I will ramble on a little about the festival itself. Splashy Fen has is known as a wet and cold festival, once a year the small sleepy town of Underberg comes to life with thousands of music lovers passing through the town to get to the festival. The businesses in the town, mostly accommodation, are generally fully booked six months in advance for the festival. I am told that there are still a number of farmers in the area who would be happy to see the end of the festival on a permanent basis.

I arrived late on Thursday night after a thirty odd hour drive from Cape Town, it had been raining for about two hours or so by the time I got in, really tired and not in the best of moods, then I was faced with not being able to get my car through the first hurdle of the roads, the rear wheel drive was just spinning. Eventually I gave up, and decided to get myself out of there and slept on the seat of my car at a service station in Underberg. At that point, even having expected a muddy and wet festival, all I wanted to do was head for Durban and forget about the festival, “it’s definitely no place for a wheelchair to be trying to force it’s way through all that mud, what was I thinking!”

In the morning after some broken sleep (the local laborers seem to make the garage their party base late at night and they don’t do it quietly)I found a little restaurant called Mike’s and had a good breakfast, the clouds were thick and it was icy cold. While enjoying my breakfast and what seemed was my last opportunity for dry warmth, if I did actually follow through and go to the festival, two Kockstad dog squad policemen came in for a coffee etc and were telling the owner how they had “Boppa’d” (arrested) a whole bunch of kids for possession of Dagga and Mushrooms at roadblocks they had setup, which is apparently standard practice for the festival. Throughout the weekend there was a police presence, with dogs. Shortly after this I headed for the festival and things had dried up a little although the clouds were still threatening rain.

Fortunately for me, this was to be a mostly sunny and dry festival and my worst fears seamed to be a thing of the past. Splashy Fen was the brainchild of farm owner Peter Ferraz and and his wife Almary, in the 60's they had been to a festival in the UK and thought it would be nice to have some music on the farm, what he had in mind was a few people around the camp fire with a few bands playing. From these humble beginnings has come one of SA’s finest festivals with a flavour of its own. The open fields and farmlands are transformed into a village of camping areas, food stalls and all sorts of other interesting stall. The festival is primarily run by husband and wife team Pedro and Mandy Carlo. For what is almost a family operation, they run a very tight ship.


Pedro still personally selects the bands, based on merit, not on how many sms’s the fans send, a big plus as far as I’m concerned, stall holders are also selected from literally hundreds of potential applicants. These are all monitored over the festival to fine-tune the following years selections based on performance. Pedro has many ideas for expansion and improvement of the festival which will unfold as the coming year progresses. Mandy deals with the media and takes care of the stallholders. Overall, the bands ran on time with fairly short changeover periods for setup and sound checking. The technical staff were all highly professional; a few hiccups here and there but on the whole sound quality was outstanding as well as very good lighting. Security personnel were also very efficient, helpful and stern when required. Inadequate dustbins means that by late each night there was garbage strewn all over, I myself had to throw bottles and cups among piles of other liter because there just wasn’t anywhere else to put it. By the light of day it was all cleaned up but this could be avoided by deploying loads of drums or such.

The weekend brought with it lots of networking opportunities with artists and other media people, all in all a very good group of people gathered in one place with a common purpose. I spoke to security and medic representatives and throughout the weekend there was very little action for them apart from scrapes and bruises and youngsters who overdosed on alcohol.

By Sunday you could tell that people were starting to get tired, I myself was exhausted and well ready to leave although I did wait for the bands I really wanted to see. As I left the festival and was heading towards Howick, a hazardous 111km road, I listened to the Splashy Fen compilation cd which has twenty tracks of some of the finest music SA has to offer, listening to it, I find it hard to believe that SA music doesn’t have a lot more support than it gets, because what I was listening to is of a world class standard. While listening to this cd and driving still further away, I had the feeling of leaving an old friend who I knew I would be back to visit soon.

Below are some pics from Day 4, these can be dowloaded and used as is and are all available in 3000x4000 click here to download the 4.98mb Zip File

Below is the WhatsOnSA Splashy Fen Videos Playlist, 2 hours worth of live performances

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